Maiko
by Ningy0
Summary: Standing in the middle of a massive plaza with nearly 10,000 other people with shocked and horrified looks all around, I may have been the only one that was truly joyful.
1. Chapter 1

I am making a deviation from SAO novels and anime by slowing down progression slightly, and might not have it end at lvl 75 although I may never write to that point anyway. If you find things that I missed aside from this that the novels contradict feel free to tell me and I will try to fix them. Thank you for reading I hope you enjoy. (and yes this is my first story, so feel free to give constructive criticism.)

If you find a name for any of my skills or weapons from the novel, or think of a better one, please inform me since I am not great with naming.

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Sword Art Online.**

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**Prologue**

I was in a rather odd situation. I was 13 and my name was Maiko, no now my name was Ningyo (doll), and I was one of about 10 people in this world that were smiling. Standing in the middle of a massive plaza with nearly 10,000 other people with shocked and horrified looks all around, I may have been the only one that was truly joyful. I had all begun nearly 2 years before. I had been riding my bike home from the dojo I learned naginata at when a passing car blew a tire and swerved into me. The pain was extraordinary, until it stopped, that was the worst part.

I was paralyzed lying in a hospital bed, watching my school lessons and inputting my answers verbally when it happened. Months ago the physical therapists had given up and so I was very surprised when one of the top ones in the hospital came in followed by a man in a business suit. I heard my mother out in the hall talking to my doctor, and after a minute they came in as well. Surprisingly the person to talk first was the man in the business suit. He said he was a representative from «Argus», and they wanted some beta testers that had a range of problems similar to mine to test their new game on «Nerve Gear». I had used «Nerve Gear» in some of my therapy sessions, and had a some experience with melee weapons so I was apparently a a very desirable tester for them. My mom wasn't hot on the idea, but the physical therapist talked about some of the advances «Sword Art Online» was making over previous programs using «Nerve Gear» and she was convinced to let me try.

During the testing it had been awesome, and due to the unique subset of testing I was in I even met some others with other problems. One boy was blind, another deaf. For the most part the «Nerve Gear» could get around these problems, though there was a lot of calibration work and such which we were there to give feedback on. In my case since I already had background with a Naginata the GM involved added a completed quest to my list to give me an extra skill «Naginata» to further the testing of fine motor control and such.

Even then though I was only allowed to be online for about 8 hours a day. Now since I was trapped, I was free. And I knew what I was going to do. Shortly before the end of the Beta I had reached level 5 of Aincrad, and found the start of the quest to get the Naginata skill. Now I just had to get to it again.

**Chapter 1 ** Floor 1, November 6, 2022, Sunday.

At the moment I was starting again at level 1 with no skills though. I had my spear, it was only the basic starting one, but you had to get spear skills up to 100 to be able to gain the «Two-handed Polearm» skill which was needed to get the «Naginata» extra skill. While I had gotten reasonably far in the Beta I had primarily been focused on refining the quality of my movements, not gathering information. And unlike in the Beta I could not start with a Naginata, I would have to use relatively unfamiliar spear skills. But I had one real disadvantage over everyone else in this world. I was using my settings from the beta test. Most people had their pain settings at almost minimum, so they would feel from 5% to 10% of the pain they would in the real world. Due to my testing my pain feedback setting was at 6, so I would feel about 60% of what I should. So I had to be perfect, and that was going to be hard.

Still I had to start soon, boars would be simple to kill with a spear, but would be hunted quickly once people got over their shock and I needed better gear to feel confident moving to harder areas. So I slipped out of the plaza, and ran out of the city. I used the gate opposite the market hoping players would come to this area last and started killing boars. In Aincrad killing boars was easy, they have essentially only one attack pattern, they charge. Even without using sword skills you can kill them just by planting your spear and having them run onto it a few times. However using the initial «Forward Thrust» skill while a boar was charging was an instant kill as long as you hit it in the head or torso. After about an hour I had killed almost 50 boars, and a significant number of players had arrived so it was getting harder to find ones to kill. Also my spears durability was getting low, so I headed back into the starting city and headed for the market place.

As I walked through the marketplace I definitely got some looks of sympathy or surprise at times. I should probably explain, first off Sword Art Online was advertised as being for ages 15 or above, and was bought out very quickly by serious gamers. This meant almost 80% of the people were males from 17 to 30, and only about 0.5% were females under 15. Also I was still in my starting clothes which means they were just slightly nicer than rags. Not to mention while I had avoided getting hit even once by a boar, I still had been knocked on my ass a couple times when my spear hit a tusk and I got hit with some recoil, so they were dirty rags. To give you the picture I had put my spear in my inventory, so at 119 cm I was a short girl with shoulder length black hair, brown eyes and pale slightly olive skin in a patched and somewhat dirty tan shirt, and a decrepit mud-crusted short skirt, walking down a road lined with 160-180cm tall men in armor carrying weapons, and all looking rather scared. I was smiling, and a little lost in thoughts of what I should buy for armor. It was almost like a mouse happily walking down a hallway full of scared cats; it probably did seem very strange to anyone observing, but I was paying little attention as the shop I wanted was coming into view.

This was way to early for there to be player run shops so my first stop was a general store to sell all my loot. NPC shops didn't pay much for items, but it can add up, each boar I killed dropped between 50-100 col, and about 1 out of 3 dropped a «leather scrap» or «chipped tusk». Selling all but 3 chipped tusks got me another 470 col giving me a total of 4320 col. My next stop was a smith to repair my spear, and hopefully upgrade it. Since it was a ultra-low level weapon and I had 3 chipped tusks for materials it wasn't a surprise when it succeeded giving me a «rusty spear +1» «1S» (sharpness), and dropping me by 700 col. My next stop was a clothing store, I was rather ashamed of the clothes I was in I just hadn't been able to afford new ones till now and some of the stares were starting to get to me.

I went ahead and bought a white uwagi (jacket), and some some dark blue hakama (loose flowing pants). Getting them in black or white was cheapest, but adding color was only a little more, And it reminded me of what I wore at my dojo where everyone thought I was cute. This ran me down another 2600 col. But unlike the starting clothes these had a +1 agi bonus each. Since spears were strength based I had needed to put my first 3 stats into str, but I wanted to work on acrobatics as my second skill as I had found in the beta that it helped with the footwork, and when you were knocked back it was easier to land properly. Acrobatics required at least 2 agility to even get the skill and while it had to be base stats agility once I got my next level I could get it and the bonus would make it easier to level. I also went ahead and got a small leather chest protector to give me at least a small amount of defense.

Now I was ready, the only question was where do I go. This was a problem there were only a few mob types aside from boars nearby. There were the wolves in the plains a bit further away and the edge of the forest, but they mostly hunted in packs and unless you were in a group they could easily flank you. Further into the forest was the second village with some pitcher like plant monsters, but they had a weak point that was really hard to hit with a spear, swords would destroy them easily, but spears would be harder, and they spit acid which was difficult to avoid, and with my pain settings so high it had really really hurt in the beta. About as far as that village in a different direction was a cave of bats which was a good hunting ground for «Throwing Blade» users, and I just might be able to get by with my spear, but I didn't really like going there for two reasons, if no one was there I could get swarmed, and if there were people they would mostly be «Throwing Blade» users which was by far most common amongst pkers in the beta. Leaving me with only one good option, finding a party. But first I needed to sleep.

Level 1: Str 3, Agi 0+2; Spear 1


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 **Floor 1, November 7, 2022, Monday.

The inn was fairly empty when I got up, I had set my alarm early as I wanted to get where I was going before anyone else. It was likely a few parties had already left for the second village, and I wanted to try and join one early on since they were more likely to have beta testers with good info. So I dressed quickly and headed out, I know you are thinking dressed quickly you mean selected equip clothes from the menu. Nope remember I was paralyzed, I hadn't been able to dress myself for a couple years in the real world, so at night I took off my clothes, and in the morning put them on; it was so cool.

I ran as fast as I could down the road to the second village till I was near the edge of the forest. It was only about 6 am by then and while some people were out killing boars it was by no means packed yet. I went ahead and hunted a few while watching for likely looking parties headed for the second village. The first couple I saw were rather scary looking being all older men (compared to me anyways), and after a couple hours I hadn't seen a good prospect when I saw another party coming up. To be honest I was almost to back off of asking them as well when I saw them but I heard them laughing and joking, and it sort of reminded me of some of the people from my dojo between bouts, so I gathered up my courage and approached them.

A rather unkempt guy with a rakish smile and a shock of red hair turned when he saw me approaching. I barely heard one of the others say "What's a little kid like that doing here!".

"Excuse me, if its not too much trouble could I travel with you to «Horunka Village»."

The person in front of me had a look of surprise on his face, and replied, "Are you sure, its rather dangerous don't you realize if you die here your gone."

"It really isn't that bad, as long as you have a group, so you can't be surrounded, and anyway there should just be wolves and nepents up ahead if I remember right."

"What really were you a tester? I thought they had an age limit on that."

"Yeah well I had a special circumstance, so I got in anyway."

He seemed rather assured by the fact I knew what was ahead, but seemed like he was wondering about what I just said, so I decided I might as well continue.

"Did you pay attention to the beta process? They brought in some people with problems like blindness or deafness to help test the systems, I got paralyzed about a year before the beta, and they had me testing for something they called phantom nerve synchronization or something."

"Oh shit, that sucks I'm sorry guess I shouldn't have dredged up the past for you."

(Giggle) "No that's fine, it probably makes me one of about 10 people happy to be stuck here after all."

"Were any of you in the Beta?"

"No, so if you could give us some pointers as we go I'd love to have you along. I should introduce myself, I'm Klein of guild «Fuurinkazan» and these are my friends."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, my name is Ningyo. I seem to remember something like Fuurinkaazan from history class, but I didn't think you could make guilds yet and there should be some type of symbol right?"

"Haha, yeah it's the motto of Takeda Shingen."

At this his friends yelled. "Speedy like wind, gradually like forest, aggressively like fire, immovably like mountain, secretly like shadow, actively like thunder.", and burst out laughing.

"Oh, and yeah you can't make official guilds yet, but we've been in a guild in lots of MMO's, and we will be in this too."

As we started walking into the forest I noticed his entire guild was wielding one-handed swords, most of them being cutlass's. When I asked them Klein said a player had taught them the basics so they were going with them for now, and asked me about my spear.

"Well spears, have a few advantages over swords in that they get better range so you can keep the enemies further away, swords are a bit more balanced as they can handle almost any situation at least decently, being able to both stab, and slash. Spears on the other hand are pretty much only for stabbing, but the range and power make them better if you are careful where you hunt. Of course in a party you probably want a mix of weapons. Spears are great at low level in parties since using a straight stab means there is little risk of hitting your team members, and the primary risk of being surrounded and having enemies get too close isn't a problem if you have someone with you. At higher skill you get some sweeping attacks that can keep an area defended, but they are hard to use in a party since you have to be careful not to hit your own party members."

Shortly thereafter we came across a wolf pack, or more accurately they came across us.

Grrr... I spun and a large wolf was practically on me with more sounds from all sides. Stabbing out quickly I got it to dodge to the side before it hit me, but fell down backwards, luckily One of the others tried to attack it before it could get onto me. It dodged away and I regained my feet before it could get back in. Around me most of them were doing really well, but they seemed to be essentially doing solo fights against the wolves. Having been in the Beta I had seen how wolf packs work together, trying to draw people apart and flank them, so I readied my spear and watched for a wolf that was getting ready to charge.

Seeing one starting to charge the side of one of the swordsmen I used «Lunging Thrust» putting all my energy into pushing off my rear foot, I shot forward stabbing the wolf in the side right behind the head. The wolf disappeared into colored polygons, and I was stuck frozen for about 0.2 seconds. «Lunging Thrust» was the second basic spear «Sword Skill», and while it was powerful it was risky to use due to the long recovery time at the end of an attack. Luckily all the wolves were too busy with the other 7 people around me, so it wasn't that dangerous at the moment. By now 2 of the other wolves were down, and only 1 of the players was down to yellow. I turned and looked for another opening, and saw some more movement in the forest.

Yelling "There's another pack coming." I made another «Lunging Thrust» into a wolf Klein had just knocked back, while they were both stunned for a fraction of a second. It might not sound like much, but being stunned for even 1/10th of a second is a big opening in a fight.

I really wasn't very worried, even with one and a half packs considering we were a group of eight it wasn't that dangerous. Wolves really only became problems when they had twice your numbers. Still with the other pack here it was time to stop using «Lunging Thrust» for a bit so they couldn't take advantage of the openings. I decided to stay at one side and just poke my spear at the right side of one wolf, and the left side of another to keep them occupied till a few more were dead. Since I wasn't using sword skills I wouldn't do much damage, but that wasn't the goal. Each time I stabbed at them they'd jump away bumping into the other. In a few seconds they AI would probably adapt and retreat them out of range, but tactics like this could buy you at least 10-15 seconds.

When the two wolves retreated a bit, I glanced around and saw 1 of the swordsmen on the ground in red with a wolf headed in to bite chunk out of him. Grabbing my spear in the middle I made a whirling spin bringing the tip of my spear whipping right above the the fallen swordsman, hitting the lunging wolf right in the eye's. Even without using a sword skill, hitting the eyes is essentially always a critical hit, and while it didn't kill the wolf since I hadn't used a «Sword Skill», it still took out over a third of its HP. Following it up with a «Forward Thrust» to the wolf's face, it shattered into countless polygons.

Unfortunately I had taken too long. The two wolves I had been keeping at bay were both mid leap towards me by the time I recovered. Bringing my spear around as quickly as I could I managed to set it for one wolf to fall on seriously injuring it, but the other came in low and viciously ripped into my leg. The pain as I expected was incredible, and I collapsed with a scream.

By now only 6 wolves were left and at my scream Klein rushed in with a «Horizontal» attack killing the wolf right after it gave another savage bite. The other wolf I had stabbed turned to face him, and got ran through by one of his guild members. My HP was still fine, not even to the yellow, but I was curled up on the ground crying and holding my leg. The others made short work of the wolves, while Klein tried to figure out what was wrong with me.

"I don't get it, sure it hurt's when they bite you, but only for a second and not nearly that bad, did something else happen?"

After another minute I got the pain under control, In this world it disappeared quickly since there was no lasting source to keep causing it. Eventually I got my voice back, "Well you know in the configuration it had advanced settings? One of them is pain threshold. Unless you changed yours its probably at 5-10%, I'm not sure if its changed since the beta. Mine on the other hand was set really high for the testing I was doing, and since I didn't expect to be stuck I didn't change the settings, so mines at 60%."

The people around me had their jaws drop. "Holy shit, what are you doing out here with things being like that? Every time you get hit you'll be have to go through this or worse, and there's no way to avoid getting hit at times."

"Well I know that I'm fine with the pain, it lets me know I'm really here. Though it is troublesome when it happens, it's why I wanted to be in a party going through here. I was hoping to just not get hit at all to be honest, but I knew it would happen sooner or later. I'm just glad you were here to take care of that wolf before things got dangerous."

"What do you mean, that's the first time you got hit so far? What have you been doing."

"Well until now just killing boars, maybe 50 or 60 of them. Those are simple though, and don't group together."

This seemed to shock a lot of them. To be honest when I had seen them in battle none of them were very good at dodging or blocking yet. They were doing fine anyway since this was so early on, and once you figured out how to use sword skills wolves and boars were no match at all one on one. I was actually getting slightly worried though, it seemed like they were barely more than newbies, and if we hit 3 wolf packs or something it could get real dangerous.

"So did any of you get the «Searching» skill by chance?"

"Ah no most of us haven't set up our second skill yet." replied Klein.

"I would suggest at least one or two of the more observant among you get it, it should show a cursor above mobs and NPC's at a fairly good range unless they have a «Hiding» skill. It could be bad if we ran into more than 2 wolf packs at a time. We should probably move along within another 3-4 minutes so those packs don't respawn nearby."

Klein asked a couple other guild members if they would get the searching skill since they were rather good at noticing things, and they proceeded to do so.

Shortly thereafter one of them pointed ahead and said there was a small pack of wolves on its own just off the path. It being a single pack and us for-warned we made short work of it this time. After a few more fights, and another 40 minutes of walking we reached «Horunka Village». It was still only about noon, so I suggested we go past an inn and get a bite to eat and I would fill them in on the area.

After having lunch, and telling them about the «Nepents» acid, and seed and such, I told them there was supposed to be a quest in town for getting a good sword, but that I had never done it so they would have to get it themselves if they were interested. A couple of Klein's friends also wanted to switch to spears, so we went past a weapon shop to buy them ones, and I bought three «Bronze Spear» and sold my old spear to one of them since it was better against the acid. The «Bronze Spear» was slightly better for most things though, and to be honest I was not planning on staying here to fight «Nepents». After helping the two that got spears to get down the basic «Sword Skills» I said goodbye. Klein said if I wanted to stick around I could join up with them, but even though they seemed pretty nice I felt sort of like I was some Anime Cos-player with a bunch of Otaku's around me, so I politely declined. I did accept Klein as a friend though, and told him if he needed something feel free to send me a message.

Level 1: Str 3, Agi 0+2; Spear 2


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3 **Floor 1, November 7, 2022, Monday.

I was not worried from here out for a couple reasons. First of all «Nepents», while not easy for me, didn't really go around in packs, and were not that hard to avoid. Second I knew where I was going. About a kilometer off the path between «Horunka Village» and the next one there was a lake with an island. The lake was fairly large, and there was really only one way to get to the Island, you had to swim. That meant it was time to unequip all my gear. I'm not a great swimmer, but it was only about 50 meters, so I easily made it, and stopping on the shore I got dressed again.

This was where I planned to stay till I was level 4 or 5. On this Island there were a few wandering «Treant Seedlings». The nice thing about this spot for me is the «Treant Seedlings» were fairly slow moving, and had shorter reach than a spear. They were fairly strong against piercing damage, and were level 4 so they appeared a dark maroon to me. But if you looked closely there was a knot of wood somewhere on each ones trunk. A stab to that would give a good critical hit, so if you were accurate they were very possible even at level 1. Also they had a very rare drop of a «Blackwood Staff». Now the «Blackwood Staff» itself was only so good and wasn't even a spear, but in the 4th village it was part of a quest to make a «Blackwood Spear» which would likely be good until I was good enough to use polearms.

Since it was already about 4 or 5 by now I needed to get my base set up. Sleeping in the wild was dangerous which is why I had bought a «Hammock» before I left «Horunka Village». That was the other nice thing about this Island, it had large trees which I could climb. Setting up my «Hammock» about 40 feet off the ground went smoothly, and I decided to try to get a few kills before I slept. I didn't really want to be out here while it was dark in case I didn't notice one till I was too close. Climbing down, I tied a piece of cloth around a low branch so I wouldn't lose track of the tree, and went to hunt.

Finding my first «Treant Seedling» took around 10 minutes, and since I wanted to be safe I just kept staying a half meter or so beyond its range and stabbing at its weak point without using any «Sword Skills». The knot was not large, and I only hit it every third attack or so. Still after a few minutes I had finished it off. I only managed to kill one more before it got too dark, but that was enough to level me to level 2. I went ahead and climbed back up to my «Hammock», and assigned my stats. This time since I already had the 3 strength I needed for my spear, I raised my agility by 3, and went ahead and added the «Acrobatics» skill that was unlocked. I was not particularly tired yet, and while it was too dark for me to want to hunt any more Seedlings. This was a perfect opportunity to get started raising my «Acrobatics» skill. «Acrobatics» went up in many ways, dodging attacks, doing flips, or the easiest way jumping. I went down to the lowest branches about 10 feet off the ground, and proceeded to jump back and forth between a couple for the next hour, until I got too tired and missed. Falling to the ground hurt, but nothing like the wolf bite. It only took about 20% of my HP, and after only a few seconds I was fine and climbing back up the tree. This time heading for my «Hammock».

The next morning I got up with the sun, the mornings here in Aincrad were spectacular, Since the floors were only about a 100 meters high most of the day you just got a sort of ambient light, but in the morning and evening, when the sun shined in from the edges there were some awesome sunrises and sunsets.

Over the next three days I hunted down another 70 or so «Treant Seedlings» and got to level four, I also made a point of using a «Sword Skill» to finish off each «Treant Seedling» so my «Spear» skill went up a bit, I had yet to find a «Blackwood Staff» however, and had only explored about half the Island.

On the fifth day on the Island, I found something I had not seen in the Beta, I should point out I wasn't really exploring I was slowly moving around fairly near my base hunting for treants. So when I reached the center of the Island and saw a large weeping willow out on its own I was surprised and slightly worried. Whenever you run into something that is unique to its surroundings it probably means something either very good or very bad is around. Creeping closer while watching my surroundings I quickly found what it was.

Under the tree there was a single mob. It was a fairly large treant with the words «The Blackwood Treant» beside its cursor. Somehow I had to think that this was now the only way to get a «Blackwood Staff», but based on the name this was a boss. Not THE BOSS, but a flag mob or field boss. These were very rare in the beta, but apparently they had added more of them. Now I had a problem, flag mobs only respawned once every day to two weeks. So if I did not kill this now and someone else came I would likely have to wait at least 3 to 4 days to find another and by then even more people might be here. On the other hand it was almost certainly dangerous to try and kill it alone.

Still I decided I had to try, I had already broken one of my spears, but I had two left, and if I was careful I could probably deal with it just like with the «Treant Seedlings». As I went forward it turned to face me, and I carefully approached ready to jump back at any moment. As I got within my maximum range I started to make careful jabs at it, always retreating if it attacked. It had slightly more range than the «Treant Seedlings», but mine was still barely longer. For the next 5 minutes I slowly backed up in circles around the willow, constantly searching for a weakpoint. I didn't find one, if it had any knots they were the same color as its bark so you couldn't see them from this far, and there was nothing else obvious.

I kept up jabbing it carefully with my spear eventually getting it down by nearly a quarter of its first health bar. Then I messed up, I got slightly too close, and it used a special attack. It raised both arms out with its root like fingers spread wide and started to spin like a top. I was only just within range, and jumped back quickly, but it still gave my leg a solid gash with the tip of its fingers. Since it only grazed me the pain wasn't that bad enough for me to stumble backwards, but I kept my feet, and it only took off 10% of my HP. But if I really got hit I might drop fast. When it stopped spinning I saw it though, beneath its arms there were some area without bark, and it got a dizzy status symbol briefly. If I was really careful I could do this.

I carefully jabbed at it while I recovered, then slowly moved in, always making certain my stance was good for jumping backward. When it spun this time I got back in time, and as it stopped I used a «Lunging Thrust» right in the center of one of those barkless patches. Its HP dropped by almost a quarter of a bar, and I jumped back out of its range just as its «Dizzy» status disappeared. For the next hour I continued this careful battle of attrition only getting grazed a couple more times until its last health bar was halfway gone.

Then it got Angry, some mobs seem to go berserk when they are hurt bad. Apparently this was one of them, its speed almost doubled making it about as fast as me, and it stopped the spinning attacks, now it just rampaged towards me stabbing out with its arms every time it got close. I retreated as fast as I could, not even attempting to attack anymore, and I made one final mistake, or maybe I was lucky I retreated into range of a «Treant Seedling». Barely dodging a blow from it I dove and sprinted to the side hoping to stay out of reach when I realized something. «The Blackwood Treant» was pulverizing the «Treant Seedling», and its weakpoint was open. I shot forward using a «Forward Thrust» into its weakpoint and jumped back quickly its arm barely missing me and blasting through my heavily damaged spear, turning it into a hail of polygons. I ran sidewards while opening my menu, and getting out my last spear. It had finished the «Treant Seedling» and was headed for me with only a quarter of a health bar left, so I ran away while searching for another seedling. When I found one I sprinted past it, and dodged off to the side waiting for an opening. For just an instant it seemed almost like time was crawling as I saw its arm moving to attack the «Treant Seedling», and an opening beginning to form. I shot forward with a «Lunging Thrust» making its last health bar disappear, and a explosion of polygons filling the air.

Luckily the «Treant Seedling» was still recovering from «The Blackwood Treant»'s attacks while I was frozen from the sword skill, but its health was already in the red and I made short work of it. And then I collapsed, I had probably been fighting for almost three hours straight. I slowly got up and walked back to my base avoiding the «Treant Seedlings» I saw on the way, and took a nap. When I woke up a couple hours later it was still early evening, I checked my menu, and found I had gained almost to level five. I guess taking out a boss, even a minor one solo was worth a lot of exp. And there in my inventory was a «Blackwood Staff» along with two «Blackwood Bark» and all the «Seedling Branches» and «Seedling Sap» I had found so far. I decided I'd get a couple more hours of hunting in, then head on to the next town in after I got level five tomorrow. For now though a couple more hours of jumping in the tree.

Level 5: Str 6, Agi 9+2; Spear 5, Acrobatics 27

* * *

At this point I went through the novels and made myself a lot of reference material, I found and fixed some discrepancies to make it closer to canon, but not everything will be perfect. I am making a forum to put my reference material on for others to use, and to try and further flesh out Aincrad. I am going to be trying to add themes for all the floors, and broaden the skill list. If you find anything I missed from the novels, or have original ideas you would like to see used feel free to join me.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4 **Floor 1, December 4, 2022, Sunday.

I lunged forward, stabbing the «Ruin Kobold Sentry» in the neck, and swung the shaft of my «Blackwood Spear» up till my left arm was level, and pushed straight out with my right hand. The second «Ruin Kobold Sentry» smashed his hand holding his axe right into the butt of my spear as his «Vertical Chop» began. I had reached the sixth floor of the labyrinth, about 2 hours ago, following a party as it worked its way through in order to reach this place. In the beta I had farmed this spot from level 6 till I hit level 9 and knew all the tricks. Luckily no one had taken it, and the tricks were the same. I was just outside a secret door to a room with a treasure chest, and had been here for most of that 2 hours. The point of me being here was not to open the chest, it was to kill the two «Ruin Kobold Sentry» that were guarding it. Once they were dead if the door remained closed for over 5 minutes with the chest unopened they would respawn.

This fight was over now, the axe hitting the butt of my spear had shoved its tip straight through the others neck finishing it off, and the one holding the axe had lost his grip and been disarmed. It was beyond simple at this point to whirl my spear around and finish him off. They only got disarmed about half the time at this point in the fight, otherwise I would have had to make three more attacks. Closing the door I used my «Hiding» skill and settled down to rest for a few minutes before I did this dance again.

Two days ago I had reached «Tolbana» the final village before the dungeon of the Floor's boss. I had searched and found an information broker since I knew I would need one later, and I had information about «The Blackwood Treant» that I could probably sell or trade. As the case was I found a young girl with some whiskers painted on her cheeks, from the person that directed me to her it sounds like she was the best. I traded my info for a favor in the future since I wasn't in dire need of any info at the moment, and friended her in case I got or needed any more info.

I had traveled here doing a different kind of grinding. One of the big difficulties with leveling up spears solo is you end up doing relatively few sword skills, since you can't risk the freezes unless you will get a kill. This was even more true for me since I was trying to avoid taking even minor hits. So my solution was just doing the sword skills repeatedly for hours in the air. Thus my absurdly slow and strange way of traveling here from the fourth village. I used «Lunging Thrust» then walked about 10 steps during its 5 second cooldown, then repeated. It was not very efficient for moving, and you only got maybe a quarter the skill that you would have for hitting things, but it didn't cause weapon durability to drop, and my skill did rise.

The «Blackwood Spear» I had gotten from the quest I had finished in town was really working well on these too, being level 8 didn't hurt, but these were nearly as easy to kill as they were using my «Bronze Naginata» during the beta.

The sound of many footsteps coming from past the end a the tunnel to my right snapped me out of my reverie. Looking down towards the cross passage, I saw party after party of people walking by, many of the joking or boasting about being the firsts ones on the next floor. This sounded like a boss raid. I didn't want to join a boss fight, I wasn't confident enough in my skills yet, but I did know one thing, if they succeeded then the second floor would open up, and there were only 2 ways to get to it. From going up the stairs after the boss room, or traveling all the way back to the starting city. And if they lost having someone extra to help the survivors fight back out of the labyrinth wouldn't hurt either. Having decided this I stood up, and started jogging towards the tail end of the group.

There was a pair of players likely thinking similar to me following about 10 yards behind the last party, a young guy with a sword, and someone in a cloak, so I went ahead and followed them at about the same distance. About an hour later, and 14 floors higher we reached the boss room. I had stopped a bit back seeing the massive doors up ahead, and not really wanting to get sucked into a party. Too be honest I don't think anyone but maybe those 2 had even noticed me. After a few minutes making sure everyone was ready they opened the doors and moved in, even the group that had been following behind.

Watching from the door it appeared the battle was going almost abnormally smoothly. A party led by a spiky haired guy was doing fine at keeping down any «Ruin Kobold Sentinels» on the right, and the pair I had followed were absolutely destroying the ones on the left. Then it all went bad, the boss pulled out some new weapon, and almost killed the entire tanking party and launched a guy with blue hair through the air practically cutting him in half in the process. The swordsman I black grabbed the Spiky guys shoulder and ordered him to take the sentinels, then his two person party sprinted towards the boss. If I hadn't seen them fighting I would have thought they were suicidal. As it was there attacks were gorgeous, it was like watching my dojo's masters doing kata's. But something close to the door distracted me, one of the «Ruin Kobold Sentinels» had knocked the spiky haired guy down, and his party was separated by another two.

I wasn't planning to join the fight, but I couldn't watch him die right in front of me. Making a quick two steps forward, I started a «Lunging Thrust» ending with the tip right in the Kobolds neck the moment before its halberd descended. The sentinel burst into polygons, and I looked down at a guys face that could only be said to be furious.

Getting up he said, "What do you think you're doing stealing my kill," and started to raise his weapon almost like he was going to hit me.

Letting out an eeeeP! in fear I turned and ran. Back down the hall I looked back and no one was following. I hid and started to watch from the distance again, but just then «Ilfang the Kobold Lord» exploded into a massive shower of polygons. Afterward, instead of everyone going up to the next floor like I expected it seemed like they were having some big argument or something, then a couple went through to the next level, and surprisingly the majority started heading back my way. I backed into my alcove, and stayed very very still hiding as they went past. I didn't need that angry spiky headed guy deciding to beat me up or something. About half an hour later when the rest had gone up I went ahead and followed.

The staircase up to the second floor had its walls decorated with rocky crags and valleys with what looked like massive minotaurs all over, with giant wasps flying through the air, and centipedes and plated worms moving around on the ground. SCARY! But I had been to the next floor in the beta and knew it was really not much more difficult than the second half of the first floor, so I continued on.

As I came out the top the view of the city, and endless plateaus surrounding it came into view. I was uncertain of any important quests for me to do here, of course there were always minor ones to be done, but nothing like getting my spear. This should be a great place to catch my level back up with the front-liners though as spears and pole-arms were excellent at dealing with the cow type monsters dominating this floor.

Level 8: Str 10+1, Agi 14+4; Spear 61, Acrobatics 78 - «Blackwood Spear+3» [2S1A]

Finishing the «Trembling Ox» in front of me off, I stopped and looked around. Urbus the main city on this floor was not far behind me, and this plateau was fairly crowded. Technically I was part of a party at the moment, but I was fighting solo right now. Earlier a «Trembling Cow» had spawned on this plateau and a bunch of parties were combined and made into a raid to kill it. «Trembling Cow»

was a miniboss quality mob that spawned up to 1 on a plateau two to four times a day. They were very powerful, and had some nice cooking and crafting ingredients, but nothing really worth the effort. It was really dangerous to leave them alive though as if a party wandered near while fighting people could start dying quickly.

Looking to the right I saw the two three person groups that made up my party easily slaughtering their «Trembling Oxen». I probably had another ten or fifteen minutes till a new one spawned near me, so I walked the twenty meters to the edge of the plateau on my left. The plateau across the canyon between them was also covered with cows and players. Over the last couple days a set of unwritten rules for these areas had sprung into being: Don't take others spawns, help with the «Trembling Cow», no training mobs. With nearly 1000 players using this area it was crowded morning to night, going further afield was dangerous though as the cows and oxen would chase you an enormous distance, so if you got in trouble running really wasn't an option.

Looking down into the canyon I saw a group of two killing slimes. One of them was using a mace, so they were having no problems it looked like. Of course if a ox spawned down there it could be troublesome, but that was fairly rare. Thinking this I saw a massive group of polygons start to form near them.


	5. Chapter 5

Note: I added a little to chapter 4 so you may wish to read the end of it again first.

**Chapter 5 **Floor 2, December 6, 2022, Tuesday.

"Katsuo Onii-san are you sure we'll be okay?"

"Don't worry about it, I read Argo's guide, and it said the «Slimes» outside the second floor city would be simple for people using blunt weapons. And there will be lots of players near the city so if we run into something tough we can just get some help."

It was our first time beyond the starting plains, we had fought thousands of boars, beetles, wolves, and caterpillars, and were close to being ready to move on to the surrounding areas when the second floor opened up. Me and my brother were both level 5, and the level 1 mobs were no longer giving noticeable experience, and we just couldn't stay cooped up in the starting city. I decided based on reading the guide that the second floor by the city would actually be safer since the first floor areas further from the city were sparsely populated with players, and many of the ones left had turned to stealing from weaker groups.

After a few hours of killing «Slimes» I was glad we had come. Twice a «Trembling Ox» had appeared, but we yelled out and a nearby party ran and helped kill it each time. And I think we had probably gotten better loot in these 2 hours than the 3 weeks since we left the starting city. I was starting to think about turning back and selling it all to buy some better gear, but first I wanted to kill the last 2 slimes nearby.

"This was a good idea Onii-san, these slimes are almost as easy as the boars," my brother Hisao said as he smashed his massive war hammer down on the «Slime» in front of us.

It was the «Two-handed War Hammer» skill «Falling Rock», a basic skill similar to a swords «Vertical». The «Slime» exploded into polygons and we moved onto the last one. This time he started with the first attack, and I finished it off.

"Let's head back to town, we should get some better gear."

As I started to turn, a massive group of polygons started to assemble in front of us. Jumping back I saw a massive cow start to take form. I yelled "Run for it!" but my brother seemed to be paralyzed in fear, just staring up at it. The «Trembling Cow» a massive five meter tall monstrosity slammed its hoof tipped arm down on his head, smashing him straight into the ground. His HP bar instantly shot to nothing and he disappeared with a shattering sound as polygons shot out in all directions.

"Nooooo!" the wail came out of my mouth and my mind almost seemed to shut down.

Then the enormous creature turned on me. Barely shaking off the shock in time I tried to block its attack, but was launched backwards across the canyon when it hit my war hammer. My HP dropped to half, I am going to die was all that was going through my head.

"CHASING!" I heard over my head, then " KiiaAAAI!" and a person shot over my head thrusting a spear right into the cows neck.

As the person dropped to the ground in front of me the cow recovered from the attack and smashed a hoof down at the small girl in front of me, she seemed to almost glide out of the way spinning her spear in a circle, drawing a tiny line across its thigh. As the battle between this giant cow, and tiny girl heated up I heard shouts of "Cow come help its in the canyon!" from above. The girl was a whirlwind with her spear, and every attack the cow made couldn't quite hit. After a couple minutes parties started to arrive, making a loose circle, about 10 meters from the fighting, and blocking the fighting from view.

"Are you all right." came from beside me, and a hand rested on my shoulder. Turning my to see who was there I saw where my brother had been moments before, and everything went black.

Everything was hard, but under my head was something soft. I opened my eyes, and saw a young girls crying face above me.

"I'm sorry I was too slow. I just couldn't get there in time." sob... sniffle...

What was she talking about, then I remembered. This was the girl that attacked the cow monster. And my brother was dead.

Character Nitori; Real name:Katsuo, male age 17 Japanese, «One-handed War Hammer», Level 5 (Brother: Dead, Hisao)


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

When I saw the «Trembling Cow» appear I knew they were in trouble, I turned and yelled to the nearest groups, "A cow just popped in the canyon!" By the time I turned back, it was slamming its hoof down on a kid with a large war hammer who just stood there. He shattered as he was slammed into the ground, dying instantly. It turned, and I almost thought it was going to happen again, but the other raised his weapon in time and only got thrown to the wall.

Without even thinking I yelled "CHASING!" and threw myself off the canyon edge. Using the acrobatics I had been learning I got into the «Lunging Thrust» position midair, and with a loud "KiiaAAAI!" I launched my sword skill straight into its throat. Recovering from my attack a moment after I landed, I quickly dodged an incoming blow making a circular slice to its thigh. My entire being seemed to focus only on what was in front of me excluding everything else around. Half step dodge to the left, swinging my spear in an arc to slice its other arm. Thrust forward while lowering my body to dodge its punch. Take a step to the right while spinning with the spear held level across my back to dodge its kick. I honestly have no clue how long this dance went on. Then I landed on a small rock, and stumbled right into it's kick. I had my spear in front of me at least, but I still blacked out for a moment when it hit.

When I came to a second later I screamed from the pain, it felt like all my ribs were breaking for a moment till it was only a memory again. A couple people from the crowd in front of me turned and ran over to me.

"Are you all right?"

"cough...cough..., yeah give me a bit I'll be fine." I looked at my hp bar, I was actually only down by about a quarter. Looking up I saw the «Trembling Cow» was down almost 2 health bars.

"Darn, I must have been out for a while, I'm glad you all got here in time."

"What are you talking about, you only just landed a second ago, that fighting was insane I think you fought it for nearly 20 minutes on your own. For a while everyone thought you were going to solo it."

"Where did you learn to fight like that anyway, and I don't think I saw a single sword skill."

"I don't know, it was almost like a dream, it just seemed like I could see exactly what it was going to do." I replied. "Um... could you help me up, I'm not sure I can stand on my own right now. My whole body feels like its water." "And where did all these people come from, there has to be almost a hundred here?"

"Well the raid parties set up to deal with «Trembling Cows» ended up coming from the plateaus on each side of the canyon, so."

Looking up I saw the cows hp was already deep into the red, someone must have gotten it stunned, or some other status effect, because about ten people had run in around it and were all using sword skills while it was on the ground. A few seconds later it exploded into polygons. And a level up screen appeared in front of me. Level 11, I had thought it was a ways away, but I guess if I really did do a quarter of the cows health?

"Is the person it was attacking safe?"

"Do you mean that guy over there?" pointing to a young man lying on the ground near the canyon wall. "As far as we can tell he's unconscious."

"Could you help move him back to town, it'd be really sad if after all this something spawned and he died anyway."

"Sure, hey guys can a couple of you help get this guy to town?"

"Thank you."

About a dozen people ended up helping us back to the city. When we got to my inn, I sat down on a bench, and they laid him down on it with his head on my lap. I was pretty shocked, but I was more embarrassed by all the praise I was getting from the fight. Blushing furiously I sat there stammering replies. To be honest I'm really not even certain what I said, but eventually I was left alone. Well sort of alone, there was still this guys head on my lap. And I had been too slow to save his friend. I started crying and whispered

"I'm sorry I was too slow. I just couldn't get there in time."

The boy on my lap opened his eyes, and quickly they filled with tears as well.

"No don't cry, it's not your fault. I... we should never have left the starting city. Nothing could have been worth risking my brothers life. I should have been the one to die, I could have jumped in front of him, or charged that monster. Anything...sob..."

Grabbing his hand. "Don't say that no one should have died, a «Trembling Cow» should never have appeared there to begin with."

"Here let me get you a room, you should sleep, and I am rather tired myself." I said.

Of course with so many people here since the floor just opened up all the rooms were full. Luckily as I was one of the first people on the floor, I had gotten the largest room in this inn. I wanted it so I could practice with my spear and acrobatics, but it did have an extra bed. I invited him in, and got him to the other bed, then went into the bathroom and locked the door. I slid down to the floor and sat emotionally exhausted for a few minutes, before reaching over and turning water on in the tub. I took my clothes off, and opened the menu to remove all underwear, and got into the tub. It was steaming hot, and I just laid back and sobbed as I let the tension drift away.

The memory of the cows hoof pulverizing that boy into the ground, just kept running through my head though, so after a while I got out, pulled my nightgown out of my inventory and went to my bed. Even there though I just couldn't sleep, eventually I noticed sobbing coming from across the room, and I got up and got onto the other bed and held him till I fell asleep.

When I woke up the next morning I found myself still curled up with my arms around his head. I extracted myself carefully till I saw he wasn't sleeping, just staring listlessly at the wall. I couldn't just stay here, it was my room but it felt like the if I stayed everything would just become more and more bleak. Getting up, I used the menu to change into my gear.

"I'm going out, you are welcome to stay if you want."

. . .

"I'll be back sometime later."

. . .

"Just don't go out and suicide or something."

. . .

"Here I'll friend you if you need something just message me ok."

I opened my menu and sent a friend request. When he didn't do anything, I grabbed his hand and pushed his finger to hit the accept button.

Seeing the name «Nitori» appear in my friend list I said, "I will return later, Nitori." then turned and left my room.

Going downstairs I got something to eat in the common room, then headed outside. I hadn't done my morning exercises I normally did in my room, so I went outside to find a large open space to do them in. Remembering a yard with some training dummies behind the weapon shop, I headed over to it. There weren't many people around, it was early in the morning, and most of the ones that had gained «Night Vision» so they could grind while the areas weren't crowded hadn't come back into town yet. And the majority of the rest hadn't started getting up to start yet.

Arriving at the training ground I started with my acrobatics. For these I was mostly working at getting down exactly where and how the system assist kicked in, and raising my skill level. It wasn't a workout like in the other world. I didn't start with stretching, and I didn't bother with any safety gear. In many ways this world made things just too easy, that was probably a good thing though since it had a few more monsters in it. I continued to do handstands, flips, back flips, cartwheels, flips with a half twist thrown in so I landed facing the opposite way (and sprawled on the ground every time), essentially anything I could conceive of doing. By this point a couple people had arrived probably to upgrade their gear, and were watching as though I was a curiosity. Oh well it was just like having people come to the dojo to watch a practice.

So I started the second half of my morning workout, opening my menu I took out my «Blackwood Spear» and proceeded to go through all the spear katas I could remember. Doing them in this world was so much easier all the trembling of muscles fighting to maintain the perfect position was gone the image of how it should look was how it came out in reality, well virtual reality. I still wasn't as good as the masters in my dojo, but I was pretty sure if you compared me in this world to them in that world I was only a couple steps behind them. When I finished I heard some clapping, and realized I had drawn a small crowd of maybe 20 people. Some of them were making joking insults like, "Its like a sword skill, except the damage sucks." or "And then the «Frenzy Boar» charged her and she realized she was a noob." but it seemed like innocent humor.

Entertainment was hard to come by here still, and while I absolutely loved this world, I still missed my mp3 player and anime shows. So I opened up my inventory and switched to my other spear. It wasn't really very good at all, I had searched npc and player shops hard for it though and it wasn't the stats I had been looking for. It just happened to have a length and balance fairly similar to a naginata. Equipping it I got into the starting pose for my naginata katas, and went through all of them over the next 30 minutes. When I finally stopped there was some significantly loud cheering, and whistling. As I turned I realized the crowd had almost doubled, and most of the people there before had stayed.

I could feel the blood rushing to my face as I blushed bright red and quickly turned my back and opened my menu to switch my spear back. When they realized I was done most of the crowd started to dissolve pretty quick and I heard some comments like "That was fun we should go to dances more often." but one in particular surprised me and stopped most of the conversations around them for a second.

"I'm pretty sure that's the girl that soloed a cow for over a bar yesterday."

"No way, you gotta be shitting me."

"If that's the case," a third voice cut in," we should invite her for the party we are making today, another spear user wouldn't hurt."

Hearing the footsteps approaching I turned around and saw a pair of legs, looking up they belonged to a rather massive black man who promptly said in perfect Japanese, "Hello, my name is Agil. I was wondering if you would like to join our party for today. We were planning to go a bit farther out to a plateau with a lot fewer players, and could use another skilled spear user."

Ningyo [Level 11: Str 12+1, Agi 21+7; Spear 67, Acrobatics 88 - «Blackwood Spear+4» (3S1A)]


End file.
